U.S. tries 15 year old as War Criminal: The most controversial trial at Guantanamo
By Monica Villamizar in Americas on August 8th, 2010
--AlJazeera.net--

The upcoming trial is one of Guantanamo's most controversial cases. Canadian citizen Omar Khadr is the only Westerner still being held at this military prison; he was detained in Afghanistan at the age of 15. He's now 23.

International law says children captured on the battlefield must be treated as victims, and not as perpetrators. Child-soldiers are supposed to be rehabilitated and given the chance to re-enter society. Omar Khadr hasn't been treated as a victim nor has he been rehabilitated because the United States says he isn't a soldier and al-Qaeda isn't an army.

It's been widely reported that the US would have preferred to have reached a plea deal with Khadr, rather than have his case go to trial. (cont...)

Will Olympics Be Magnet for Human Traffickers?
Awareness campaign slated for fall, but no convictions yet.

By: By Doerthe Keilholz, 4 September 2008, TheTyee.ca


"Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist," potential sex buyers are cautioned these days by posters in pubs and nightclubs in England. It's part of the "Blue Blindfold" campaign launched by the U.K. government in preparation for the country's 2012 Olympics. The drive is levelled against human trafficking, which often includes forcing women into prostitution.

In Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games, human trafficking cases nearly doubled, according to the Greek Ministry of Public Safety.

Government officials and human rights activists in Canada are worried that Vancouver's 2010 Olympics could become a similar magnet for traffickers and their victims.

But Canada has yet to successfully prosecute a single person for human trafficking, although the country has been singled out as a major link in the grim global industry in a U.S. State Department report. Human trafficking, says the report, is the world's third most lucrative international crime business after drugs and arms smuggling, and Vancouver is a hub.

The coming Olympics will only fuel the trade, predict authorities.

Not only in Athens but at the soccer World Cup in Germany, "there was definitely a demonstrated increase in the exploitation of women in relation to those events," says Robin Pike, head of B.C.'s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP), an arm of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Taking the UK's efforts as a role model, OCTIP started to work with the Salvation Army, which will launch their "The truth isn't sexy" anti-trafficking campaign this October in Vancouver

Canada lags in convictions

In 2004, the RCMP estimated that about 600 people are trafficked to Canada for sexual exploitation each year and another 1,500 to 2,200 are brought through the country on their way to the United States.

Police and border officials need to be sensitized towards trafficking victims, says Norm Massie, former RCMP human trafficking coordinator. "We get the victim out of the situation and reassure them so that over time and with the right people in place... we can gain their support in order to gather the evidence necessary to advance criminal charges."

While several criminal charges have been laid over the last years against alleged traffickers, not a single person has been convicted of human trafficking so far.

Others countries are more successful in prosecuting offenders: Sweden had 15 convictions for human trafficking in 2005 and 21 in 2006. In the United States, 75 defendants have been convicted of human trafficking since 2001.

'Under the radar... very challenging'

The testimony of a trafficked victim is often the only clue to find the offender, and victims are hard to track down, says Pike. "Human trafficking is very clandestine and under the radar and it is the detection and identification of trafficked victims that has proved to be very challenging in about every country in the world."

"It's a very new offence... It's only been on the books for a few years," says University of B.C. law professor Benjamin Perrin. "Some prosecutors and police are reluctant to [allege] this offence because they are not sure how the court will interprete it."

Nakpamgi: A first conviction?

In May of 2002, Canada ratified the United Nations Palermo Protocol, which commits all undersigned countries to protecting trafficked victims and punishing those who carry out the trafficking. Three years later, Canada's Criminal Code was amended to include laws against human trafficking.

The new laws are getting a first test in Toronto, where Imani Nakpamgi pled guilty to forcing two 14- and 15-year-old Canadian girls, who were reported missing, into prostitution after advertising them on Craigslist in sexual poses.

For Perrin, the Nakpamgi case is also significant for eventually calling attention to domestic women and children being trafficked as well. "For many years most people in Canada simply thought of human trafficking as involving foreign nationals," says Perrin. "Canadians realize more and more that Canadian women and girls are being used as commodities in the sex trade and Canada needs to do more to punish those who are causing this suffering."

No long-term solutions for victims

Convictions are further hampered in Canada because there is too little incentive for victims to work with government officals, says Daisy Kler from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter. "[Trafficked women] are here completely illegal... and because they are illegal, they are afraid to use the system. Rightly so, because most of the women are sent back once they are identified as being trafficked."

Most victims of trafficking are eligible to apply for a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP).

From May 2006 up to today, 43 victims of trafficking have been referred to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, of which 17 have been granted a TRP. "That doesn't mean the others have been deported," says CIC spokesperson Karen Shedd. "They might have applied for other kinds of permits, and not all victims want to stay."

While TRPs have been recently extended to six months, Kler fears that victims still have few chances to build up a new life in Canada. "We know of six trafficked people who asked for TRPs and they got that but none have been granted citizenship," says Kler. "So part of the solution is to offer women who are trafficked a genuine route to citizenship whether or not they testify against their trafficker."

The CIC holds no records on how many trafficked persons applied for permanent residence or citizenship.

Trafficked women, especially when they come from poor and unstable countries, need to be protected from being sent back, says Kler. Too often, once returned to their homeland, the women find themselves vulnerable to further exploitation.

'The truth isn't sexy'

Backers of Vancouver's upcoming "The Truth Isn't Sexy" campaign against human trafficking point to a similar effort carried out during the 2006 World Cup soccer competition held in Germany. The nation-wide effort used posters, shirts, whistles and beer coasters to get its message out.

The German government says its studies found there was less human trafficking than anticipated during the contest.

Pike hopes that a public campaign will make Canadians more aware of trafficked victims in their vicinity and contact public services if they believe they've spotted a victim.

Forty Eighters
-wiki-

The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the country, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights. Disappointed at the failure of the revolution to bring about the reform of the system of government in Germany or the Austro-Hungarian Empire and sometimes on the government's wanted list because of their involvement in the revolution, they gave up their old lives to try again abroad. Many emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia after the revolutions failed. Many fought in the American Civil War and Latin American Wars of Independence. They included Germans, Czechs, Hungarians, and others. Many were respected, wealthy, and well-educated; as such, they were not typical migrants. A large number went on to be very successful in their new countries.

Iran holding three journalists on charges of 'unauthorized reporting'

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, November 6, 2009; 2:19 PM

TEHRAN -- Iranian officials arrested a Japanese reporter and two Canadian reporters during anti-government protests this week and charged them with "unauthorized reporting," the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Friday. It did not identify the reporters or their news organizations. The three reporters join two others whose agencies said they were also arrested during Wednesday's protests marking the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy here. Agence France Presse said its local reporter Farhad Pouladi was detained and the International Federation of Journalists said a Danish journalist, Niels Krogsgaard, was arrested in connection with the demonstration.

"The claim about the arrest of the AFP journalist is under investigation," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency cited Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi as saying Friday. Iranian media gave no further details on the other arrested foreigners. All are still believed to be in custody.

On Wednesday authorities temporarily blocked all access to e-mail programs such as Gmail and Yahoo during the demonstrations to prevent people from sending images to foreign media organizations. Still, many managed to upload cellphone clips to video sites, which were widely broadcast by foreign-based Farsi language satellite channels.

Anti-government protesters used a state-backed rally commemorating the 1979 embassy takeover to stage their own demonstration against the government, which they call illegitimate. The confrontation led to clashes between security forces and protesters in the center of the capital. Foreign reporters were ordered to report only from the official demonstration.

Iranian officials have often accused Western media organizations of organizing and promoting the protests. Foreign journalists are largely barred from the country since several demonstrations and riots following June presidential elections.

The number of schools in the Canadian Indian residential school system is astronomical.

Canadian Indian residential school system

In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce, general medical superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), reported to the department that between 1894 and 1908 mortality rates at residential schools in Western Canada ranged from 35% to 60% over five years (that is, five years after entry, 35% to 60% of students had died). These statistics did not become public until 1922, when Bryce, who was no longer working for the government, published The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921. In particular, he alleged that the high mortality rates were frequently deliberate, with healthy children being exposed to children with tuberculosis.

In 1920 and 1922, Dr. F. A. Corbett was commissioned to visit the schools in the west of the country, and found similar results to Bryce. At the Ermineskin school in Hobbema, Alberta, he found 50% of the children had tuberculosis. At Sarcee Boarding School near Calgary, all 33 students were "much below even a passable standard of health" and "[a]ll but four were infected with tuberculosis." When he entered a classroom there, he found sixteen of the children, many of them near death, were still being made to sit through lessons.

Murder at United Church Indian Residential School Described, killer Named, at Vancouver Press Conference
Vancouver, Canada:
May 27, 2009

The family of a child murdered at the United Church's Edmonton Indian residential school went public today at a downtown press conference in Vancouver, and named her killer. Eliza Charlotte Stewart described the murder, and played a recording from her sister Inez Beryl Spencer, who personally witnessed the attack on their sister Victoria that caused her death. Victoria, age nine, was struck on the head with a wooden two by four by a residential school staff member named Ann Knizky. Victoria died the next day.

"First I was hit on the back, and then Miss Knizky hit Vicky because she wasn't coming into school fast enough. She fell down some stairs" said Inez in her statement. "That night Vicky started complaining about head aches and she died the next day in the Camsell hospital. Miss Knizky never was tried for killing her." Eliza Stewart commented, "Vicky was shipped back to us in a burlap sack and her brain was missing, so we think they did an autopsy and removed her brain to hide the injury done to it. They never told us anything. And the church then claimed she died of TB, but she never had it." Eliza Stewart and her brother Moses called upon the United Church to identify the whereabouts of Ann Knizky so that she can be charged with murder, along with the church itself.

"They're not off the hook, just 'cause it happened years ago" said Moses Stewart. "Even if Miss Knizky is dead, we want the United Church to stand trial too for how they covered this all up and protected a murderer." The Stewart family will be issuing a formal Letter of Demand to the United Church of Canada and its officers this week, which will require them to surrender Ann Knizky and identify her accomplices, publicly admit its responsibility for the murder, erect a memorial for Victoria, and compensate the family for her loss. The Stewarts will also be calling on the police to open a criminal investigation into Victoria's death. The press conference was sparsely attended. Of sixteen media outlets contacted, only two reporters were present. Among the absent media was the so-called "Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network".

In a final statement approved by the Stewarts, Kevin Annett of The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared said, "Thousands of children died in this manner in the Indian Residential Schools, and not one person in Canada has ever been charged for the death of a child there, or brought to trial. The government is even forbidding names of perpetrators to be named. We will not allow these churches to get away with murder. We call upon others to come forward and name those responsible for the death and torture of innocent children in the residential schools." Further updates will follow once the police and United Church respond to the Stewarts, or fail to.

For information contact: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca or 1-250-753-3345.
Read Comments and Article from The Province Newspaper

Flu spotlights Canada as H1N1 sweeps First Nations and Inuit communities

By Terri Hansen
Environment and Science Reporter
Inuit Territory, Canada

For a flu that has thus far produced mostly mild disease, the high number and severity of A/H1N1 infection in Canada’s aboriginal and First Nation communities is sobering. Canada, which to date has 5,710 confirmed H1N1 flu cases and 11 deaths, has given no indication of why the surge is occurring in indigenous communities.

The sharp spike of outbreaks in the predominantly Inuit territories drew alarm from the World Health Organization last week, with senior official Keiji Fukuda saying a disproportionate numbers of serious cases had unfolded in Nunavut and northern Manitoba communities. Fukuda warned that past pandemics had hit Inuit populations "very severely."

Nunavut’s chief medical officer Dr. Isaac Sobol downplayed WHO’s report, but even as he said he didn’t see a disproportionate number of serious cases in Inuit communities, cases in Nunavut doubled from 25 to 53. The next day cases in Nunavut jumped to 96. The number has since risen to 204, and the Nunavut Health Department reported that outbreaks were spreading to communities throughout the entire region. Northeast Manitoba reported 226 cases and two deaths in their small aboriginal communities. Northern Ontario’s Sandy Lake First Nation is reporting more than 120 new cases. Over two-thirds of the seriously ill and those airlifted to hospital intensive care in need of ventilators and intensive care are aboriginals.

“I suspect, by the time this virus has worked its way through Manitoba, as many as half, if not more, Manitobans will have been infected," chief provincial public health officer Dr. Joel Kettner said. He also said that a disproportionate number of Manitobans from First Nations appear to have a severe form of the flu, and aboriginals and people aged between 20 and 60 are among the groups most at risk of H1N1 flu infection. First Nation chiefs say their communities are in full pandemic mode. The Canadian government is denying their requests to set up emergency field hospitals. Manitoba officials issued a plea asking doctors and nurses to volunteer in the remote communities. Three doctors are en route to the region, and 13 nurses, 10 medical residents and two nurse practitioners have indicated their interest. The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic caused by A/H1N1 swine flu, devastated not only Inuit communities in Canada and Alaska, but other North American indigenous communities as well, and caused extremely high mortality rates among indigenous peoples. WHO’s Fukuda said any speculation as to causes such as genetic, environmental or due to underlying diseases is premature. Aboriginal leaders in Canada blame the poor health and crowded living conditions in their communities and accuse federal and provincial governments of leaving them with little help. Poor nutrition, overcrowding, and poor housing make it harder to prevent the disease from spreading. In some First Nation communities, as many as a dozen people squeeze into two-bedroom homes, and over half have no running water. They also lack full-scale medical clinics. Canada’s provincial governments are responding differently to outbreaks in aboriginal communities.

Saskatchewan First Nations, as Status Indians, must have pre-authorization before the Canadian government will authorize payment for the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. The process usually takes a week, and Tamiflu is only effective if taken during the first one or two days. While most people recover from the flu without using anti-virals, WHO said the anti-viral Tamiflu may reduce the symptoms and duration of illness, and may contribute to preventing severe disease and death. There is some fear now that the virus may travel throughout Canada’s Indian country and still active as a possible second and third wave of H1N1 hit this fall and winter.

The message to protect your family and yourself is as important as ever. Stop its spread by washing your hands thoroughly, or use alcohol-based hand sanitizers; both kill the virus. Turn your head and cough into the crook of your arm. Keep a healthy distance from sick people. And stay home from work or school when you’re sick, so you don’t infect others. The Obama administration has put out a plea for understanding from employers.

The Red Cross website counsels worried families that knowing what to expect, how to prepare and where to find needed information and support will increase your resilience, decrease your stress and minimize the impact on you and your loved ones. Information on pandemic preparedness is available at http://www.pandemicfluandyou.org/. And here’s advice for Parents on Talking to Children about H1N1 Flu: http://bit.ly/7NNCU.

The CDC, www.cdc.org/swineflu, and the federal government’s pandemic website, www.pandemicflu.gov/, are good sources of information. Or call the CDC’s toll-free hotline: 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636). The line for the hearing impaired is 1-800-232-6348.

Compiled from news reports and other sources.

'Operative Journalists trying to set up Indigenous People for Attack?'

Thursday, April 2, 2009

“OPERATIVE” JOURNALISTS TRYING TO SET UP INDIGENOUS PEOPLE FOR ATTACK?

Mohawk Nation News

http://www.mohawknationnews.com

MNN. April 1, 2009. The colonies of U.S. and Canada know we, the Rotinoshonnionwe, have a birthright to conduct trade and commerce on our homeland, Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island. State and Federal authorities cannot legally stop us except by coercion, breaking laws, criminalizing and threatening us. We are peaceful, law abiding and take care of our families and communities. The misnomer Center for Public Integrity out of Washington DC has been putting out propaganda to produce racial hatred against us.

“Serial warfare” uses the media to set up the target for the attack. “Investigative journalists” seek the truth. “Operative journalists” use deceit, misinformation, destruction, psychological attacks and exaggeration on their “mark”. They create suspicion and biases against us by falsely connecting us to “guns”, “contraband”, “drugs”, “organized crime”, “smuggling” and “global terrorism”, to set the stage for an attack by U.S. and Canadian occupational forces, both military and corporate.

We are being criminalized by the foreigners for something that is not a crime. We have a right to trade and commerce. Tobacco is our product which we create on our homeland.

No violence is associated with any of our legitimate businesses. The only violence is that perpetrated on us by foreign cops and outside interests. No one supports those few business people who may be involved in drugs, similar to the U.S. government that was trading drugs for guns in the Iran-Contra affair, or the CIA releasing drugs in East LA [GaryWebb: Dark Alliance]. The colonists constantly criminalize almost anything we do that would make us independent. We have tried to play by the rules. The government raised the taxes and demands so high to try to control us that we could not sustain our businesses.

If most U.S. and Canadian businesses were criminalized or taxed too high to be viable, they may be forced to break their own laws to survive. The state has been trying to determine that the Mohawk People are “insurgents” to remove any human rights protections we have according to international law.

We would never carry out criminal economic enterprises like Bernie Madoff, AIG, Wall Street bankers and all the other corrupt scrum bags who have created the worldwide melt down. These are the kinds of interests that are coming after us.

The “operative media” plays a major role. Mainstream papers are losing circulation, influence and advertising. Many like the Montreal Gazette have become cheap sensation seeking rags. They divert the public from their own dire situations by ganging up on the “Indians”, a target they think can’t defend themselves.

The Center for Public Integrity is a propagandist of racial hatred which is a precursor to genocide. They criminalize and slander us for whoever hired them to set us up for the kill. This group of media whores may be lobbying for Big Tobacco and the foundations that fund them. They are "generously" funded by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. NYC Mayor and billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, constantly condemns "Indians" and tobacco and hires journalistic “hit men” to assassinate both. Other donators are the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, JEHT Foundation, John D. and Catharine T. MacArthur Foundation, Park Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and PIERS Port Import Export Reporting Services.

Their propaganda does not mention that the police forces are involved in stealing our products and money such as the Ontario Provincial Police, Surete du Quebec, RCMP, NYS Troopers, U.S. and Canada Customs Border Patrol, Cornwall, Montreal and other city cops. They hijack our products and then sell them to their own customers. This is known as the silent “blue market”. Many of our people don’t get a summons to go to court to reclaim our possessions. We sometimes find our vehicles in the parking lots of various donut shops.

Big Tobacco companies such as Rothman’s, Imperial and RJ Reynolds are headquartered in Britain. They don’t want any competition or for Indigenous to profit from trade in our own products. They want to be the only game in town, make the rules for everybody and call in the military on some made up pretext.

Tobacco is legal. The fear is that the profits are being invested in our youth, families and communities which will make us stronger. Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island, is the richest territory in the world. The invaders want to keep us as the poorest. If we had a real share of our own resources, we would not have to resort to what they call the “underground economy”. We are not afraid to work in the light of day because we aren’t criminals.

This is not about lost revenue or health care expenses in the U.S. and Canada. It’s about loss of control over this aspect of our lives. The “extortion” they are crying over is chump change compared to the trillions of dollars they are stealing from us.

Yes, we have organized crime in our communities called “Indian Affairs” and other colonial agencies. Non-native business people and the colonial state, with the help of their “Indian” mules, use the protection of the colonial Indian Act and Federal Indian law “band” and “tribal” recognition to make money. They help build casinos and other developments on our lands from which we do not benefit or control. The “kingpins” are all on the outside. We’re left with trying to clean up their mess! [MNN “Canada & Big Tobacco..” 2/6/09].

Big Tobacco and their global cohorts want everybody in the world to be under their thumb or otherwise eliminated. They are trying to corner us and cut us off from any means to survive. The streets of Kahnawake, Akwesasne, Kanehsatake, Cattaraugus and Tuscarora are safer than any street in Montreal, New York, Buffalo or Washington, D.C. This fear mongering hyperbole by the journalistic “guns for hire” of the multinationals and their colonial agents means we better get ready to defend ourselves. A big attack by the combined forces of the U.S. and Canada may be coming our way soon!

MNN Staff, Mohawk Nation News & Native Pride www.mohawknationnews.com www.letstalknativepride.blogspot.com katenies20@yahoo.com

kahentinetha2@yahoo.com